Published: Saturday, November 10, 2012 at 10:40 PM.

Ticket fixing is a very difficult allegation to prove, Ford said; it would require an admission from a guilty party.

During the investigation, the BCSO found a copy of an old traffic ticket on Hall’s desk. It had never been filed with the courts.

According to the BCSO investigative file, in 2008, Burkett, who was at the time a rookie officer, stopped a woman who had a suspended license. The computer in his car said her tag was to be confiscated if she was stopped by police, so that’s what he did. He didn’t arrest the woman, who happened to be with the wife of a Mexico Beach city councilman, but he gave her a ticket.

When he returned to the police station, the two women were there with Chief Hall. Privately, Hall asked Burkett for the ticket, and then, Burkett said, he ceremoniously tore it up.

Harbuck showed Hall the copy of the ticket during the interview. It had never been voided. It had never been filed. It was just there, on Hall’s desk.

Had Hall ripped up the ticket to gain favor from a councilman who at least once told Hall he should be fired?

MEXICO BEACH — Last year, officer Jesse Burkett of the Mexico Beach Police Department conducted a traffic stop on Rene Roy. It was not well received.

Roy did not have her driver’s license with her, so she gave Burkett her Department of Children and Families (DCF) identification. Though she’s not employed with DCF anymore, her role with the agency put her in frequent contact with law enforcement officials in Mexico Beach and Gulf County.

She was tired, and she had enough traffic violations on her record that another one could have put her driver’s license in jeopardy. So she dropped names. She mentioned Mexico Beach Police Capt. Glenn Norris, she said.

“He was like, ‘I don’t care who you know,’ ” Roy said.

Burkett wrote Roy up and they both went on their way. Burkett later brought the traffic stop up to now-retired Chief Brad Hall, and then Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent called Hall to see if anything could be done to help Roy, according to a Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigation.

BCSO looked into allegations that Hall engaged in ticket fixing but was unable to sustain them. The BCSO investigation, done at the request of Mexico Beach city officials, looked for violations of police policies and procedures and was not a criminal investigation.

Hall, who retired in October, is the subject of an active criminal investigation being conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). BCSO investigators waited for FDLE’s investigation to progress to a point where the policy violations could be investigated without interfering with the criminal investigation, said BCSO Maj. Tommy Ford.

“What we have to do is create a wall between the criminal investigation and our investigation,” Ford said.

Ford said while BCSO investigators wouldn’t necessarily have avoided investigating possible criminal activity — and ticket fixing could fall into that category, he said — they wouldn’t feel compelled to duplicate FDLE’s investigation.

“It was supposed to get fixed, but it didn’t,” Roy said in an interview with The News Herald. “They were supposed to talk to the chief and get it taken care of.”

Roy was not interviewed by BCSO but has given FDLE the same information.

Hall asked Burkett if there was anything he could do for Roy, but Burkett was adamant the ticket would stand, the BCSO file shows.

He could have voided the ticket, he said; he’s done it before when he thought the circumstances warranted it. He said the decision to void a legitimate ticket is within the sole discretion of the officer who wrote it.

Roy later told FDLE investigators in a sworn statement that Hall had assured her that if she contested the ticket in a hearing she could get out of the ticket. Roy scheduled the hearing, and a subpoena was issued to Burkett.

The subpoena was served to Hall, who signed for it and left it on Cpl. Deborah Everett’s desk. It never got to Burkett. Burkett found out about the hearing by checking the Clerk of Courts website.

When Burkett showed up for the hearing, Roy seemed dismayed. She apparently said something like, “he’s not supposed to be here.” She lost at the hearing and paid the fine.

She explained to FDLE agents that she had spoken to Hall and he’d assured her that the ticket wouldn't be filed in time.

“Chief Hall kept telling me, ‘I don’t understand how it got filed.’ He said, ‘I purposely left it on my desk so it wouldn’t get filed in the right time frame…,’ ” Roy told investigators, according to a transcript.

Hall couldn’t be reached for comment, but in his statement to BCSO investigators he denied interfering with the subpoena or the ticket. He said he told Nugent the same thing he tells people during traffic stops: If you go to court, the officer might not show up. He said he never keeps traffic tickets on his desk.

Capt. Steve Harbuck of the BCSO asked Hall why he thought Roy was surprised to see Burkett in court.

“Why would she think he would not show up? See … that’s the $10,000 question.”

Hall’s response was inaudible.

“She would have to suspect he would show up.”

“Well of course she would have. …” Hall said.

"Because she’s fighting this ticket.”

“Mmhmmm.”

“She, most citizens would expect that officer’s going to be there. Anything outside of that is out of the norm.”

“Right.”

“Isn’t that right?”

“That’s true.”

“Even if there is no shock, amazement and awe, just the implication this officer is not going to be there is outside the norm.”

“Well, it’s outside the norm. There again, I don’t know what she was told,” Hall said.

“You did not assure her that the officer would not be there?”

“No, I did not.”

Though BCSO didn’t find any policy violations by Hall with regard to ticket-fixing allegations, they did find evidence that Hall had violated numerous policies. They found on several instances Hall violated the policy requiring truthfulness, but those violations were unrelated to ticket-fixing allegations.

Ticket fixing is a very difficult allegation to prove, Ford said; it would require an admission from a guilty party.

During the investigation, the BCSO found a copy of an old traffic ticket on Hall’s desk. It had never been filed with the courts.

According to the BCSO investigative file, in 2008, Burkett, who was at the time a rookie officer, stopped a woman who had a suspended license. The computer in his car said her tag was to be confiscated if she was stopped by police, so that’s what he did. He didn’t arrest the woman, who happened to be with the wife of a Mexico Beach city councilman, but he gave her a ticket.

When he returned to the police station, the two women were there with Chief Hall. Privately, Hall asked Burkett for the ticket, and then, Burkett said, he ceremoniously tore it up.

Harbuck showed Hall the copy of the ticket during the interview. It had never been voided. It had never been filed. It was just there, on Hall’s desk.

Had Hall ripped up the ticket to gain favor from a councilman who at least once told Hall he should be fired?